Stupid question time

[Mad Bomber]

The biggest reason to turn off the Auto-Save is that the game requires less processing power than a game with A-S turned on.

[DrSpike]

I can't imagine how bad a system you would need to see an effect from turning it off.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by DrSpike
I can't imagine how bad a system you would need to see an effect from turning it off.

I have a 1.5 Ghtz P4 with 256 MB of RAM and I notice a significant difference when I turn it off (athough I rarely do, as I suffer significant power outages) I should point out though that I usually have 250+ workers roaming about and this slows down the game considerably.

[DrSpike]

That surprises me; I have never seen even the slightest difference between having it on and off.

[Mad Bomber]

Originally posted by DrSpike
That surprises me; I have never seen even the slightest difference between having it on and off.

It is most noticable on large or huge maps with a large number of civ's and units. If you play on a standard map size with 8 civ's or less you probably will not notice this (Civ III was designed to be played on this map and CIV size)

[spy14]

Autosave takes up processing power and (on and off) space on your virtual drive, so in larger games where your virtual memory is nearly full it can cause a noticeable slowing effect. Turn it off

[TheArsenal]

I don’t have a great deal of slowing, but like most people playing huge and large maps with a lot of civs there is definitely some in the late game. And I can’t remember the last time I had a Civ game crash so turning off AS may be a good idea. So to clarify, when one says “significant difference (in speed)” what are we talking about time wise? I generally have a great number of cities late game so the places I notice slow down are not so much between turns, but between completing city builds and being able to actually move my first unit – and oddly, a slow down when I capture an enemy city and click “install new governor” and the time the city screen opens.

[spy14]

The speed differance depends on the number of units, what they are up to, and your computer itself (i.e is it multitasking or whatever). Large games fill your virtual memory (using all your RAM to run the game as quickly as possible) so Autosave kicking in means some extra files will have to be transferred to your HD to accomodate it, hence the slowing effect.

[Cerbykins]

I wonder if we could turn the trade network off on huge maps....
Really though, when I bombed large metros to towns again I could always tell when I hit the crucial harbour, because the game froze for about 5-10 seconds while it re-drew the sucker

Compared to that, I can't see autosave mattering in speed terms

[Blademun]

Ahh

So THATS why my game slows down when I sink the harbor. LOL. I always thought it was odd.

Eh, My P4 is currently humming along at 3000 Mhz..Got 512mb of Ram, and another 128 on my 9600 pro, just in case I have -alot- of animations..yep.. ;p

My freeze time when the harbour is hit is about 1 and a half seconds, on a Large map with 10 Civs. (I started with more but the other 6 got gobbled up.)

[spy14]

Up that to a gig of ram and you'll be laughing (even harder). I'm on a 2Ghz machine with a gig of Ram and notice a delay of 2-3 secs.

[Blademun]

I'v been seriously considering going to a gig of ram..if it were feasable. My system only has two ram slots. Thus, I'd have to sell out my old Ram to make room for 512 sticks..